Electrical assemblies include a printed circuit board and a package, such as an integrated circuit, electrically connected to the printed circuit board. The electrical connection between the printed circuit board and the package is often made with an interposer or socket, which may be inserted between the printed circuit board and the package. The interposer allows the printed circuit board and the package to electrically connect to one another through the interface connections on the interposer. The electrical connection, via the interposer interface connections, between the printed circuit board and the package may be a point-to-point connection.
Factors, such as manufacturing defects, degrading interfaces and degrading materials may cause an electrical assembly to fail. The quality and robustness of the electrical assembly may be monitored for failures and also monitored to determine the faults causing the failures. Further, an electrical assembly may be tested for characterization purposes. One factor that may cause a fault in an electrical assembly is the degradation of interposer connections. The degradation of interposer connections may be monitored for shifts in electrical values. Another factor that may cause faults in an assembly is the degradation of materials such as the material used for solder joints. The material degradation may also be detected by monitoring shifts in electrical values.
Currently, the increasing complexities of electronic assemblies are placing increasing demands on test system methods, from both mechanical and electrical standpoints. For example, it is not uncommon for current electronic systems to include integrated circuits with a very large number of contact points. While it may not be necessary to test each and every contact point, the mere fact that the contact points are increasing typically means an increase in the number of points that must be tested in order to effectively test the electronic system. Accordingly, the equipment cost and the complexity of testing increases as the number of test points increases. Further, the number of interposer connections or solder joints is increasing with the number of contact points on the integrated circuit. As a result, testing is increasingly difficult as the number of interposer interface connections or solder joints is significantly increasing and the number of test nodes available for test equipment connection is not significantly increasing. The result is a number of interposer interface connections or solder joints cannot be directly tested, making it difficult to determine the point or points of degradation. Further, characterization of the electrical assembly also becomes more difficult.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved test system and increased granularity of test data points in the test system. As will be recognized from the discussion below, these and other problems in the art are addressed by various systems and methods conforming to aspects of the present invention. Before explaining the disclosed embodiments in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of the particular arrangement shown, because the invention is capable of other embodiments. Moreover, aspects of the invention may be set forth in different combinations and arrangements to define inventions unique in their own right. Also, the terminology used herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation.